Firewall Sorcerer Leveling Guide for Diablo IV Season 12 - Slaughter

The Season 9 theme is the Sins of the Horadrim. This season allows you to craft unique Horadric Spells using three different components: a Catalyst, an Infusion, and three Arcana. You earn Catalysts and Infusions through the Seasonal Questline, and Arcana can be found while exploring Nightmare Dungeons. You choose a Skill as the trigger for your Horadric Spell. Once in Torment I or higher, Horadric Jewels can be crafted which replace the Gems in your Jewelry, that add additional power to your build.

Disintegrate is good damage and activates often once you rank it up. Assign it to your Spark.
*Cosmic Anomaly would be great but it has a negative bug interacting with Primordial Binding.

Smoldering Ember provides additional burning damage for Warmth and scales with Combustion.

• Invigorating Helix - This provides a good amount of defense with Fortify and healing.
• Tranquil Stone - Unstoppable source but requires activating your Catalyst.
• Shifting Powder - Additional movement speed but requires activating your Catalyst.

• Sapping Crux - Until you find a Ceh Rune, you need more ways to apply Vulnerable. It doesn't require you to activate your Catalyst which works great for stacking Anomalies.
• Sharpening Gizmo - This gives your Anomalies a chance to deal some extra damage. It doesn't require you to activate your Catalyst which works great for stacking Anomalies.
• Pressurized Steam - This can trigger Shocking Impact and should give a better chance at activating Sharpening Gizmo. Sapping Crux is better until you get Ceh.
• Bottled Wind - Provides additional Barrier but requires activating your Catalyst.

To get started with the Firewall Sorcerer Leveling build, always use your highest DPS Staff available for more damage. You can use one hand and offhand if they both have higher item power than your current Staff but are less likely to find consistent upgrades for two items instead of one. Otherwise, follow the priority list below. While you don't have all of the desired temper manuals available, simply try to get anything useful on your gear until you acquire the right ones. For example, % Damage, Damage to Close, Vulnerable Damage, etc. all work as long as you activate their conditions. Likewise, you can temper multiple defensive options such as Resistances, Life, Armor to fill gaps in your survivability. Tempering low level gear is relatively cheap and the results can be very impactful.

Tip: For the early game, Elemental Surge Weapon Tempers are very powerful due to their high base damage, especially if you already have the better versions. If you find these, you may want to keep imprinting them on your weapons for an easy time.

The Codex of Power is a collection of Legendary Aspects you can imprint onto Rare or Legendary items at the Occultist. They unlock after completing specific Dungeons located around Sanctuary or salvaging items with these powers. Check out our Map Tool to locate these Dungeons.

For leveling, there are a few powers that can significantly help us if we have the funds to imprint them. In addition, keep an eye out for powerful Unique items you may find for this or other builds.

First Season Journey Cache

• The Season Journey provides caches with Legendary Aspects.

• The Undercity is available to unlock at level 15 if you have access to Kurast. This provides a large amount of Legendary items for aspects and quick upgrades. You don't need tributes for the Undercity.
• The Undercity provides cooldown reduction for a limited time after completing an objective. This allows you to use Teleport Enchantment to quickly traverse the dungeon while summoning maximum familiars.

Must-have Dungeon unlocks

1. You don't need any aspects to get started with the Firewall Sorcerer Leveling build.

Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Conflagration
2. Control
3. Disobedience
4. Snowveiled

Other useful Aspects (drop/gamble)

1. Elemental Constellation - This is very powerful for any build leveling
2. Engulfing Flames
3. Conceited
4. Storm Swell
5. Shredding Blades
6. Concentration
7. Elemental Acuity

What to Gamble

Great Uniques for this build

1. Tal Rasha's Iridescent Loop
2. Esu's Heirloom

As you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can massively amplify your power and speed up the leveling by switching to another build. Keep in mind that there are many more Aspects and Unique Items that can be useful to multiple builds; this just lists some of the most impactful ones. While we usually recommend starting with Endgame Builds at level 60, you often can make them work earlier with these drops:

Build-defining Aspects

• Serpentine (enables Hydra Endgame)
• Glacial / Frozen Tundra (enables Blizzard Endgame)
• Flamethrower's / Overheating (enables Incinerate Endgame)

Build-defining Uniques

Ophidian Iris (enables Hydra Endgame)

You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them in Two-Handed Weapons if your build calls for them, otherwise place them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Firewall Sorcerer Leveling build focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

• Cem + Qua for high mobility, increasing your movement speed with each evade and stacking up, this helps you navigate the game much faster.
• Cir + Ceh provides additional summons that freeze enemies and apply vulnerable. These also activate Primordial Binding for mobility and Mana Regeneration.

Alternative choices

As long as you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top Runes, you can also benefit from these options:

• Tun triggers Shocking Impact for a large burst of damage. This is the highest damage potential once you have enough ranks of Shocking Impact and plenty of movement speed to replace Qua.
• Tec for extra damage, with this you creates an earthquake and has the highest damage potential for early Invocation Runes.
• Yax and Poc are other options for Ritual Runes.
• Igni + Jah is a lot of mobility if you have access to Legendary runes. This gives you a Teleport for your evade every 3 seconds after casting a non-basic skill.

Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.

• Raheir is a great option to make surviving easier, Valiance prevents damage from large hits and makes you Unstoppable for very short duration. Take Ground Slam and grab Raheir's Aegis for extra defense. Next you want Bastion with Iron Wolf's Virtue. Valiance is a very powerful mechanic for pushing more difficult content or playing on Hardcore.
• Subo is a good alternative thanks to the passive Seeker that reveals enemies and objects on your map, this is a nice quality of life addition which also restores Mana. Grab Molotov along with Scorched Earth to boost your damage over time. Next you pick Snipe along with Incendiary Bolt to trigger the Scorched Earth as well.

• Varyana provides additional attack speed with Bloodthirst, set this to cast when the player casts any skill in combat.

In Diablo 4, you can level by completing the Campaign, collecting Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers, completing Helltide activities, grinding Dungeons, clearing Strongholds, fighting in the Undercity of Kurast or interacting with the Seasonal Mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are equal.

As you approach level 60 with the Firewall Sorcerer Leveling build, you unlock higher item power gear that represents a massive jump in character power. This is a good time to refresh your setup with new tempers and imprints.

At level 60, Paragon Levels and The Pit unlock. Work towards Tier 20 to enter Torment 1, where the Endgame begins. Focus on overcapping your Armor (1000+) and Resistances (70%+) as you receive some penalties to your character's stats:

• -250 Armor per Torment difficulty
• -25% All Resistances per Torment difficulty

At this point, your setup should look roughly like this before you dive into min/maxing with Uniques, Mythics & Masterworking. With better gear, more levels and Glyphs, you can push further and eventually unlock higher difficulties for increased rewards.

This step marks the end of the leveling guide. Below is the Paragon setup to get you started in Torment difficulty, but ideally, you should now transition towards the endgame version of this build or choose another of your liking.

Use the slider to see progression steps. At around Paragon 200, leveling slows down significantly and all important Rare clusters, Legendary nodes and Glyph sockets should be unlocked. Afterwards, you can min/max your build with minor tweaks and by picking up additional smaller nodes.

To Level 15

1. Flamefeeder
2. Pyromaniac
3. Tactician
4. Elementalist
5. Eliminator

To Level 46

1. Flamefeeder
2. Eliminator
3. Pyromaniac
4. Tactician
5. Elementalist